Yeah, I was planning on getting Crackdown anyway. I'm actually only mildly interested in the beta, since I've never been all that into Halo. I'll mess about with it, but it's not going to make me buy a game or anything for it.

yeah i read about this yesterday,although the site i read it on,said it was 'marked' copies of crackdown...so does that mean there will only be so many copies of crackdown that includes it?...if so,better be fast

This is similar to when Konami was bundling the demo of Metal Gear Solid 2 with Zone of Enders on the PS2. I was working as a sales associate for EB at the time, you wouldn't believe how many people were buying ZoE just for the MGS2 demo. It's almost like the demo was the primary purchase, and the actual game was the nice extra.

For those interested could you buy it, take the code, then return the copy as unplayed???

Edit: I just called my local EB and the guy said that it would only be on pre-ordered copies and that the beta was coded on the disc as well and so you couldn't just return the disc.....damn......$60 for the beta and a game.....might be worth it

Considering you can make preorders up until the week before the game is released I doubt the beta is only on the preorder discs. They may put it on the first chunk of copies or something, but to know exactly how many preorders they needed to fill before the manufacturing phase is just not realistic. EB clerks are not exactly a great fount of accurate information when it comes to...most anything. (no offense, Misguided)

Considering you can make preorders up until the week before the game is released I doubt the beta is only on the preorder discs. They may put it on the first chunk of copies or something, but to know exactly how many preorders they needed to fill before the manufacturing phase is just not realistic. EB clerks are not exactly a great fount of accurate information when it comes to...most anything. (no offense, Misguided)

The guy said that if they were getting a lot of pre-orders for it then they would cut it off....... If not I would assume that you are right and it is just the first chunck

Also unknown. Or to put it better, "Until sometime before the game comes out."

And to answer your next question - no, nobody knows when the game will launch.

Well, we do know now that it's officially "Fall 2007" so I'm betting on another November launch. With MS so happy to have GTA4 day and date with PS3, I doubt they want to risk pissing off Take 2 by launching Halo 3 too close to that so I would say that cuts October out of the picture.